After the announcement that a stage production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, a play set two decades after the final Harry Potter book, cast Hermione Grainger with a Black actress. some circles of fandom have spoken up about the casting in unflattering ways.

J.K. Rowling has no problem with this casting — and views it as fitting within the canon she created. So why is there such pushback against this casting? The idea of default whiteness. I (Keidra) had something to say about this on Twitter earlier in the day:

This whole Hermione thing is not at all about “protecting canon” but about protecting the idea of default whiteness in fiction/media.

Fictional Characters The idea of default whiteness is based around the concept that a character is presumed white unless specifically and explicitly described as not white. One of the big pushbacks in this Hermione debate is J.K. Rowling’s tweet below:

One of the arguments that I (Keidra) have gotten since posting my own tweet on the subject is that Rowling was being disingenuous in her statement because she never specifically described Hermione as non-white in the book and a white girl (Emma Watson) was cast for the movie.

What these critics fail to acknowledge is that many readers do not make the assumption that a character not explicitly described as white is white, hence my point. Hermione, based on the above description, could easily be cast as a black woman without betraying canon, not to mention nothing about Hermione being a person of color would take away from or contradict for her established backstory.

And this is the problem with presumed default whiteness in fiction and mass media, because this viewpoint makes it impossible to view a non-white person in a role even when the racial background of the character has NOTHING to do with the role. Harry Potter exists in not only a fictional, but a magical universe and yet so-called canon sticklers attempted to make up reasons for why Hermione as a black person was “unrealistic.”

J.K. Rowling didn’t retcon the Hermione character as black, she simply stated that canonically she didn’t have to be white. And that alone was enough to infuriate some fans. The concept of a character being interpreted as non-white in one retelling of a story is the equivalent of the entire canon of a story being betrayed.

Rue in the Hunger Games film

Referencing another fictional universe in The Hunger Games, Rue, a character who was specifically and explicitly described as black in the books was defaulted to white by some readers. Some movie viewers were dismayed at the casting of a black girl in the films, going so far as to say that her death in the film was less emotional because they had not imagined her as black when they read the book.

This, my friends, is default whiteness in a nutshell. In the past couple of years in fandom circles ,we’ve seen a very vocal push against this kind of thinking, but it’s been hard to fight. It’s actually easier to push for “diversity” than it is to push against the concept of default whiteness, the idea that stories are by default centered around white characters because they are perceived as “universal stories.” This, in short, is the reason why the conversation of representation in mass media always hits a wall. If the concept of non-white people in fictional, magical worlds can’t be accepted as realistic, there is more than a perception issue at play, there is a fundamental block in the way that people see (or refuse to see) how race plays out in mass media storytelling.

Historical characters

One of the largest arguments raised for default whiteness, specifically the casting of white (or white seeming) actors is that this casting is historically accurate. But it isn’t really accurate in any sense of the word, otherwise white actors of any background wouldn’t be seemingly randomly cast as both evil oppressors and victims in any European World War II story. Cast a Jewish person of color? To play a Jewish person, perhaps even their ancestor? That can’t occur because it would be historically inaccurate.

But there have always been people of color in places that default whiteness says are impossible (and sometimes will level down to improbable). The recent movie, Belle, about a Black woman in Great Britain who was the grand-niece of Lord Mansfield (who started Great Britain down the road to abolition) was based on a true story.

Just because the stories that are mostly told are based on default whiteness, doesn’t mean they are the only stories to be told.

Two of the most important European writers that serve as representatives of culture from those countries are of African-descent; their stories demonstrate how default whiteness is wrong.

Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin was a Russian writer who is considered the founder of modern Russian literature. Oh, and he was of African descent. But if there would be someone who would be cast to play a historical Russian poet, the default will be to cast a white actor every time. Even though there is historical proof that perhaps … casting Jesse Williams would also make sense.

Alexandre Dumas

And for an example that is more likely to be familiar to American audiences — what about The Three Musketeers and its ilk? There wouldn’t be any Black people in the historically accurate story of it’s writing, would there? But there would! Alexandre Dumas was a French writer of historical novels, including The Count of Monte Cristo and The Man in the Iron Mask. And Black. So how about casting him outside of the bounds of default whiteness.

Final Note: We Haven’t Gotten As Far As We Thought

Some day a movie will be made about the extraordinary story of the Renaissance man, Alexandre Lippmann, who was a French artist and fencer, winning metals at three different Olympics. Maybe by that point, default whiteness won’t be a factor in casting him, considering he was both Jewish and a descendant of Alexander Dumas. But it is much more likely that to be historically accurate, he will not be cast with anyone with similar heritage, but instead with someone who fulfills a spot that is less problematic for white audiences.

And casting for roles hasn’t moved that far from the days where white actors had all the roles — white, Black, Asian, Native peoples, etc. As long as the role was “noble” and there would be some romance, only white people were allowed to be cast. We only need to look at the true story of Anna Mae Wong, a Chinese-American actor, who was not allowed to play the main character in The Good Earth, a Chinese farmer, because she wasn’t white. Or Pearlie, the movie with the tagline “The love story of a girl who passed for white!” where a white actress plays the role of a light-skinned Black woman.

If you are a white reader, you may think — “well, that happened a long time ago.” So I will remind you that Star Trek, a series beloved to geeks and nerds, had the first interracial kiss on television. And it was censored by Southern stations. And even to have the kiss — it needed to be coerced by alien forces — neither Kirk or Uhura were allowed to choose to kiss.

Not as much has changed with default whiteness in media as many would like to assume. And that is why we will continue to write posts like this!

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One of the earliest papers on fandom Keidra and I ever presented (at MIT’s Media in Transition 5) was about the difficulties in determining the line between canon and fandom.*

“Canon,” from a pop culture standpoint, is defined as the official storylines and back stories invented by the creators of television shows, movies, and books. “Fanon” is the ideas and concepts that fan communities have collectively decided are part of an accepted storyline or character interpretation.

But of course, the line between these two concepts is frequently unclear. Who decides what is really canon? Even when it is produced by the original author? The Star Wars Christmas Special is one example — and as a Star Wars fan at the time I saw it, it was hard to believe that George Lucas had anything to do with it; on the other hand, it did introduce Boba Fett.

Is the original author/creator write fanfiction/fanworks based on their original work — canon? fanon? both? neither?

But we collectively have homage for authors for their creation — look to the ways that the comics creators of many of the most popular superhero characters are viewed by the public as in the right in lawsuits to retain rights or profits in their creations. Those creative forces are seen by the public as the “real” owners of those characters — not their actual corporate owners.

Therefore, it is likely that these technically fanfic works will be seen by the reading public as more authoritative than the official, but not written by Smith books. But even that line isn’t clear, considering that there are official Smith written books that are considered to have quality issues:

the L.J. Smith-authored The Return: Nightfall, [was] perhaps the oddest 608 pages ever marketed to young girls, even giving the nutso Twilight: Breaking Dawn .. storyline a run for its money.

But the issue of “what counts” and what doesn’t will continue to occur. And who decides what counts?

In Batman Unmasked — released in 2001 before the rebooted (and now re-rebooted) Batman movie franchise, Will Booker discusses all of the official Batman products through a critical lens. So much of the official releases are discounted by fans — but yet the core Batman-ness holds true. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be possible for both Batkid and the Arkham Origins video game to exist and be popularly known at the same time. The fandom has even decided who are the “real” voices of both Batman and the Joker, leaving those productions without Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill as less worthy.

The removal of Aaron McGruder from the fourth season of the Boondocks on Cartoon Network is another recent example of the difficulty for fans to figure out what “counts” and what doesn’t. As fans of Community (during last season), fans of Gargoyles, and fans of Gilmore Girls confronted before — does a show continue to be canon when the major creative force behind it leaves?

Does whether some cultural production count as canon or fanon matter whether it is officially authorized? That doesn’t appear to be the line, so what is it? It seems like for most works, for something to be canon, it needs to be produced by the original/real source and be of high enough quality and stand the test of some unknown amount of time. Based on this, it is possible that the new “fanfic” works by the original Vampire Diaries author might be considered to be be canonical works — while the “real” releases will be considered by the fandom to … not count.

The Gargoyles fandom already is an example of a fandom that chooses to embrace as canon only part of the original work, but all of the work of the major creative force as canon. After the major creative force behind the show wrote a Gargoyles comic book series that was a direct sequel to the first and second seasons, completely ignoring the official third season of the show, fans count that as canon, but not the official third season.

Many movies and television shows show the artistic process as a simple one — one where the singular author writes alone in the modern equivalent of a garret in Paris. When the author is stuck, a friend or a muse helps the process along until the “By Jove, I think he’s got it” moment. And scene!

However, despite its many failings as a show (with the exception of Megan Hilty and the supporting dancers/singers), Smash (presently on NBC) does show the complicated nature of completing a work — here two very different staged musical productions, one on Broadway, one off Broadway.

For both musicals, Bombshell (about the life of Marilyn Monroe) and Hit List (about the fleeting nature of fame, I think, maybe or it is just a post-modern Spring Awakening sans death?), the original writing team (lyricist and composer duo) has a very clear vision of what they want their musical to be. However, at almost every turn, their original vision is stymied, by others trying to make the musical more marketable and acceptable to a wider audience. But unlike the traditional narrative about creation, some of the changes forced upon the productions make the shows better.

Two Marilyns from Smash

One of the most interesting aspects on Smash regarding authorship and control is based around the inclusion of a dramaturg on both productions. At least within the context of the show, a dramaturg helps the authors to focus the narrative of the musical, thereby changing the structure of the musical, including adding or eliminating songs and characters. Having a non-author voice helps both productions become better, because the authors are too emotionally connected to their work.

While only a stepping stone to ridiculous plot twists, I appreciated that the authorship contribution of the director was considered on Smash. When the director leaves Bombshell for Hit List, the need for him to sign off on the continued use of his choreography is shown through the new choreography being … dreadful and a mockery of the song The National Pastime. However, the new version is needed to avoid any remnants from the original — thankfully not needed to a sign-off within the same episode (without negotiation or a payoff? Seriously?). Unlike Television Without Pity, I would like “episode after episode of thrilling contract negotiations” considering how rarely transactional issues regarding authorship are dealt with (but I realize my interest is not that of the average viewer). Hit List has a similar disagreement between one of the authors and the director, solved not through logic, but by the *other* author (AKA the only non-jerk, thereby fewest lines).

“One of the points of contention last year was that the network thinks they have the right to say to the writer of the show, ‘We don’t want her to do this. We want her to do this… And I would sometimes say back to them, ‘She would never do that.’ And they’d look at me like I was crazy, and I’d be like, ‘Nope, it’s not crazy, it’s just who the character is.’ You have to respect who the character is. It has its own internal truth and you can’t betray that. And if you don’t betray that, it will not betray you. There is this sort of sense that if you don’t fuck with the muse—if you don’t fuck with the muse, the muse will stand by you. … It turns into bigger questions about power and art, power and storytelling. Is power itself bigger than storytelling? And I would say no.”

As someone who has watched the show since the beginning, I think that power and boring storytelling has now finally overtaken the remaining interesting aspects of the show. And considering the potential — They Keep Moving the Line — is a perfect song that *should* be in a Broadway production starring Hilty. To-day. While a broader view of authorship can help to widen the perspective of audiences about the creative process, Smash‘s time to get the balance right unfortunately is over, considering it is more interested in Gossip Girl style plot twists and out-of-character interactions. The creative process is complicated — and Smash‘s on- and off-screen drama prove how complicated actual, let alone legal, authorship can really be.

Academics are involved in an unique circular relationship to intellectual property. They build their work “on the shoulder of giants” – building on the expression of ideas by others, often being paid for work relating to their production of copyrighted materials, yet the custom is for them to retain copyright.

Academics then gift, sell, or license their works to publishers, who then sell or license these works back to the institutions that were the underlying support for their creation. This leads to several unfortunate situations: institutions paying for work twice, academics holding the inaccurate viewpoint that they can use copyrighted materials as long as they are for educational purposes, and academics technically being unable to reuse or revise works once their copyright has been transferred.

Further complicating the situation is language in the licenses for many of the databases that academics use – explicitly rejecting use for non-educational purposes or commercial purposes.

My forthcoming article discusses the development of the teacher exception to copyright through both common practice and case law, but will focus primarily on the potential solutions:

contract: explicitly changing the contract terms of employment;

statutory interpretation: by interpreting fair use broadly to more explicitly include educational use by the institution that pays for the work’s creation;

statute: creating an exception to copyright similar to public access to government funded research by the National Institutes of Health (42 USC § 282c (2009)); and

license: creating an open access / institutional repository to create an access point for faculty research, similar to the new policy followed by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences of Harvard University.

My Solution

A Multifaceted Institutional Repository to suit the needs of institutions and faculty:

To include all published academic works produced through institutional funding

Allows for portability for faculty from institution to institution

Will have buy-in from all levels – prefer mandate approved by faculty

Will allow for other faculty at the funding institution to use without needing to be concerned about permissions

Use present open source searching and later searching improvements

Allow for additions to the repository to be made by

Author, publisher, or institution (such as through the library)

Would allow for a delay (as with NIH mandate of placement in repository within 12 months)

Want more? Including why law review publishing is an ideal place to start creating an effective cross-? Then you’ll need to wait for the article!